Paraphernalia

October Sundays she fills our house

with Kings College carols

and lavender-fragranced Yankee Candles.

Rockwell’s Girl at the Mirror clings to her daydream,

holding on, as twilight dims against the wall.

She floods our lives with bright and useless things -

a wall barometer has stubbornly pointed to rain

these past two years of drought;

a brass miner’s lamp shines weakly

on an eight-day French clock,

miserly commanding seven minutes to two.

A copper kettle is just an object to clean twice a year,

and cracked Edinburgh crystal decanters

only offer solace for dust and thin air.

In her bedraggled log-cabin quilt,

handmade by unknown hands, she snuggles

on an heirloom sofa, carrying within her

our seed of future generations.

And I watch her

watching me,

as I retain my place

and hold on like light and love,

in this balance of substance

and flummary.

I’m beginning to befriend the futile.